Gender and willingness to lead – does the gender composition of teams matter?
93 Pages Posted: 24 Jul 2018 Last revised: 18 May 2020
Date Written: March 1, 2020
Abstract
We explore how team gender composition affects willingness to lead by randomly assigning participants in an experiment to male- or female-majority teams. Irrespective of team gender composition, men are substantially more willing than women to lead their team and both men and women are more willing to lead female-majority teams. This effect is statistically significant for the full sample and separately for women. An analysis of mechanisms reveals that a large share of the negative effect of male-majority teams on women’s leadership aspirations is accounted for by a negative effect on women’s confidence, influence, and expected support from team members.
Keywords: leadership, gender differences, experiment
JEL Classification: C92, J16
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation